Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Sunday October 16, 2005 @01:31PM
from the because-voiding-the-warranty-is-bad dept.

Craig writes "PSP Owners have long been interested in watching the UMD films and playing games on the TV, well now according to a report from Lik Sang they can, the new PSPTV being produced eventually by Gametech will be a no modification addon. From the article: 'The TV Adapter for PSP lets you hook up your PSP to your home television (NTSC and PAL) via Composite or S-Video and Stereo connectors. This adapter requires no modification of your PSP console. This new peripheral takes a completely different approach and clips on top of your PSP screen, with two screws to fit at the back of the handheld (in these two holes you can see on the top of the UMD drive). Some sort of pyramid grows from the base, with a precision lens and mirror system at the top, capturing the image and light, in a similar way a scanner or camera would. It then converts it into a video signal that is sent through video leads going from the adapter to your TV set.'"

UMD Video will be on our tv's soon enough. People think the content was only designed for the psp screen but in all reality, UMD Video is actually encoded at 720x480 (Same resolution as a DVD Video). Think about the math for a second1.8 gig umd encoded with mpeg 4 avc codec.4.7 gig dvd encoded with mpeg 2

Mpeg 2 -> Mpeg 4 cut file sizes in half by itselfMpeg 4 -> h.263 (avc) Cuts file sizes almost in half againThat really comes down to mpeg 2 dvd quality can fit in 1/4 the space when encoded with h.2631.8 gigs a disc is really quiet a bit for a h.263 encoded movie at dvd resolution, just look at divx, where you can rip an entire movie down to 700meg and maintain most it's quality. H.263 pushes that even further.

If sony was to encode video for the psp at 480x272 with a bitrate of about 1 meg a second for video and 128kb sound, it would come out far smaller then 1 gig, but the reason you don't see umd rips (which could be played back on a computer using a special player) is because currently there are not many 2 gig pro duo sticks and it makes these movies hard to rip because they almost always take the full 1.8 gig of the umd.

This sony encoding at 720x480 is not just a hunch based on file sizes either, it's a little bird that wispered in my ear. I think in the next year or two, you can expect to see other umd format devices, such as home players and maybe higher resolution portable movie players.

People who take this path of scanning there psp to show it on the tv are morons, and they are potentially going to have the worst quality ever seen on a tv. The only way it would be bareable is if the tv your watching it on has a smaller screen then the psp itself, otherwise you'll just have a blurry mess.

Guess what? The PSP is not designed to be hooked up to a television. if you want to do so, you have two options. The first, is to get some half-assed contraption like this, which is going to likely offer crap video quality.

It even lets you hook up a PS2 controller. Are you really going to play your PSP with this new contraption on the front of it? I think not. Unlike this new one, it actually taps into the video signal going to the LCD directly. That certainly seems like the more intelligent method, and is certainly liable to be the option with the highest quality output.

Face it, the serious PSP users have already voided their warranty for homebrew apps, piracy, or just to stick it to Sony by downgrading their firmware out of spite. Replacing the faceplate with one that has a connector at the bottom allowing you to dock a REAL video output solution to it is a sound idea that makes a hell of a lot more sense than this thing.